Bent but not broken

The weekend carnage was so pronounced that I was forced to return to my bed yesterday afternoon in preparation for last nights filming of the last of my parts for Otway The Movie. Actually, that sounds a little like it will be a porn film, but as you will know it is not. The problem was continuity. For the filming on Thursday evening, pre weekend and post diet day, I was looking like an Adonis, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, animated and erudite. Yesterday lunchtime I was looking like I felt, old and broken and barely able to string three words together. It would have been a good example of the dangers that can befall a man when he finds him self in doubtful company, the sun is out and the pub is open. A kind of before and after story, but that was not what the director, Steve “Chimney” Barker was trying to capture. This picture of a half uprooted tree reminded me of myself before that afternoon nap.

The leaning and broken tree cannot completely obscure the beauty of the castle. there is an analogy here

Despite an iron willed determination to avoid a drink, nothing else would work to return me to my good-natured ebullient self, so as Neil Young said, rust never sleeps, and that iron will if which I have spoken, rusted so badly that we went to the Swan Hotel for a pint of London Pride and a pint of Harvey’s at the White Hart, which revived me sufficiently for the filming of my bits as I mentioned, which were predominantly about the time in the 1980’s where Otway and I pulled the scam of signing Warner Brothers, but you will have to wait to see the film for the full story. Without London pride, it could have been a debacle.

Arriving at the White Hart, I was greeted excitedly by the bar manager Terribly Tall Timothy Taylor, who told me that he had a great picture for this column. It was taken on his phone over the weekend, Sunday I think, in the pub garden and depicted an amiable ageing local music business impresario author, who shall remain nameless, enjoying a short well deserved reinvigorating nap whilst holding the butt of a cigar. Sadly, I had to tell him that I felt sure I would never have sufficient space available to be able to include the photo in this daily missive. Had the picture been of someone with less merit or specifically not the author of this column, then I concede that things might have been different.

Today will definitely be drink free as it is the first of the dreaded diet days, of which there are two designated this week . By Thursday you will be able to turn me sideways and mark me absent. I think some might call that look emaciated but I don’t think it was right for women to get the vote. Ok, that was pretty obscure but it made me laugh. Regular readers will know that my standards of humour are not high. I have not yet feasted on my, no doubt, boiled mushroom on Nimble, but the deletion is already creeping ever nearer.

On the plus side, the sun is out, albeit fitfully, so a morning constitutional, (perhaps with just several jumpers and no coat?) will get those red corpuscles on the move and ready my mind for a day of commerce and starvation. The joys of Currencies Direct will be getting my full attention, as will some of the miscreants who have yet to settle their royalties.